Topic: Transcoding APE to FLAC with international fonts seem to crash (Read 3253 times)

escaflo · « **on:** September 19, 2006, 04:08:13 am »

Hi,

I've been using scthom (I think that's how to spell his nick, my memory might be failing me) FLAC plugins and have been trying to transcode all of my APE files to FLAC. But I've got lots of files in the Chinese Big5 character set and Japanese/Korea character set. The moment the encoding process hits to file, Media Center quit with an exception error. I've also tried transcoding it to WMA lossless with no luck. The only lossless encoding that I can use seems to be the APE. But I am trying to move away from APE as I am trying to setup a Linux system and APE is not supported everywhere but only in XMMS. I am just wondering if there's a possible fix for this?

Cheers

JimH · « **Reply #1 on:** September 19, 2006, 07:05:28 am »

Are you sure you have the right version of the plug-ins? He has a couple of threads on this board where you can start.

escaflo · « **Reply #2 on:** September 19, 2006, 09:59:10 am »

Yeah, I am pretty sure. I am using 1.6.1 with Media Center 11.

I can transcode English titled songs without much problem but once I hit Chinese titled songs, Media Center will just crash with an exception. It happens when I try to encode with Windows Media Lossless also so I am figuring that this has to do with how the encoder handles the Chinese titled songs.

For now I am sticking with Monkey Audio and still trying to figure out what's the best to transcode from Monkey Audio to FLAC.

JimH · « **Reply #3 on:** September 19, 2006, 11:23:33 am »

According to this thread:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=33352.0

1.6.2 is the current decoder.

Please read that thread and post there.

scthom · « **Reply #4 on:** September 19, 2006, 09:25:04 pm »

If they're Unicode compatible, they ought to work. The fact that it won't go to WMA either is odd given that APE seems to work for you. As Jim noted, try the latest and see if that fixes it.

escaflo · « **Reply #5 on:** September 19, 2006, 10:16:00 pm »

Hi,

I am using the latest decoder and encoder and it is still the same. I am using Encoder 1.6.1 which I got from the sourceforge page and still having the same problem. Once again it is weird that it works fine with APE but it will crash with both Windows Media Lossless and FLAC.

scthom · « **Reply #6 on:** September 20, 2006, 09:08:43 pm »

Hmmmm...

Well, the obvious solution is to rename your files

Now that I mention it, I assume you imported these files into MC? You could try a rename from file properties and see if it changes the file name to something usable.

Barring that, try posting the file name of one that crashes here and I'll try to rename one of my files and see what happens.

escaflo · « **Reply #7 on:** September 22, 2006, 02:01:58 am »

Hmm actually I did. I renamed the file to normal english file name.. or rather numerical file name, like 1.ape, and it still crashes.

I am wondering if it has something to do with it trying to read the ID3 tag and it crashes there.

=/

escaflo · « **Reply #8 on:** September 22, 2006, 07:49:18 am »

If anybody is interested, I can send them the APE file but you probably need a big mailbox.. or I could just try yousendit...

Just let me know.

Cheers

scthom · « **Reply #9 on:** September 24, 2006, 06:59:40 pm »

Does the command line version of flac properly decompress and/or analyze the file? Normally an ID3 block at the end of the file is not needed for flac since flac uses a proprietary metadata block at the beginning of the file. The reference commandline version will ignore the ID3 block.

escaflo · « **Reply #10 on:** September 26, 2006, 12:05:20 am »

I just tried encoding a decoded wave file (from APE) and using the command line, convert it to FLAC. It works.

I just noticed something funny too. When I try to import the decoded wave file into Media Center, it give an error. The file doesn't play and bitrate and everything is not shown. I try playing the wave file with Media Player Classic and it work.

I am assuming something is wrong during the decode to Wave process as the resulting wave file does not play in Media Center and it also cannot be converted into FLAC.

I am really very lost in regards to this.

scthom · « **Reply #11 on:** September 30, 2006, 10:49:34 am »

Quote from: escaflo on September 26, 2006, 12:05:20 am

I just tried encoding a decoded wave file (from APE) and using the command line, convert it to FLAC. It works.

Well that's good news, at least. It means we can probably eventually figure out a fix.

Is there anything unusual about the files (other than their name) -- are they 16 bit, 44.1 kHz ?

It sounds like I'll need to get one of your files to test with. Do you have any that are really short / small file size? I really only need the header and a few seconds of sound.

escaflo · « **Reply #12 on:** September 30, 2006, 03:51:27 pm »

Yeah they are all 16bit 44.1 khz.

I've cut a snippet of the ape file that I am having problem with. Using this encoded ape file, Media Center also crashes when trying to convert to FLAC.

I've upload this file to yousendit.com

http://download.yousendit.com/F3D32BF47A46D3F5

scthom · « **Reply #13 on:** September 30, 2006, 09:12:25 pm »

OK, I got the file. I'll take a look.

scthom · « **Reply #14 on:** October 01, 2006, 10:40:02 pm »

Well I have good news and bad news.

Good news is that I figured out what the problem was -- the flac internal file routines were not Unicode compatible and it couldn't open the file. I fixed the encoder by switching to the SeekableStream instead of the File routines. In my testing it seems to work fine.

The bad news: it's only the version 2.0 plugin thats fixed (MC12 only). So you'll have to wait until 12 is wider beta before it will work for you.

escaflo · « **Reply #15 on:** October 02, 2006, 12:58:41 pm »

Thanks for that scthom!

Actually I've access to the MC12 beta right now but I am refraining myself from switching to MC12 right now as my sister still has just got use to MC11 and is complaining when I did a switch to MC12.

Guess I just gotta wait a bit.

escaflo · « **Reply #16 on:** October 19, 2006, 03:43:52 am »

I've just switched to MC12 and now the encoding works. But when I try to modify the tag of the FLAC files, MC gives me error saying that it encounters error trying to update the tags.

The filename are in Unicode so I assume that's the problem?

scthom · « **Reply #17 on:** October 20, 2006, 06:04:28 pm »

Hmmm. Didn't do that during my testing. All files or just some? Again, try changing the name and see what it does.

escaflo · « **Reply #18 on:** October 20, 2006, 10:58:52 pm »

Hmm I tried renaming the files but the same problem occur. I even moved the files out of unicode folder (just in case) but Media Center still got problem saving the tags.

It works fine for english files though. Problem with the In_FLAC maybe?

escaflo · « **Reply #19 on:** October 20, 2006, 11:36:57 pm »

I've capture a screenshot just in case you can't reproduce it.

It happens for all unicode flac files. English files works fine.

scthom · « **Reply #20 on:** October 21, 2006, 10:54:12 am »

Quote

Problem with the In_FLAC maybe?

Yeah, In_FLAC, not the encoder. The decoder/player does all of the tagging.

Did you get the most recent version of that too? It seems to work fine here on my machine. The decoder has been Unicode for a while and I haven't heard of any reports of it not working lately (except for you

).

escaflo · « **Reply #21 on:** October 23, 2006, 09:57:59 pm »

Yup, got the latest one. Even re -download it just to make sure but it just doesn't work.

Guess it is just my luck that my computer decide to go all bonkus on me.

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Author Topic: Transcoding APE to FLAC with international fonts seem to crash (Read 3253 times)